Carolyn Cooper | Those wicked white people!

If you’ve ever taken the time to read the 1833 act to abolish slavery in the British colonies, you will understand what I mean. The schemers who conceived it were well and truly wicked. The full title of the document is An Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies; for promoting the Industry of the manumitted Slaves; and for compensating the Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves.

Translating the document into modern English, plain and simple, should be one of the first projects of the newly established Centre for Reparations Research at the University of the West Indies, directed by Professor Verene Shepherd.

politica-venezuela.comAccording to a press release issued last week on the eve of Emancipation Day, the centre “will lead the implementation of CARICOM’s Reparatory Justice Programme, which broadly seeks to foster public awareness around the lasting and adverse consequences of European invasion of indigenous peoples’ lands, African enslavement and colonialism in the Caribbean; and offer practical solutions towards halting and reversing the legacies of such acts”.

The translated Abolition Act should be required reading for every single Jamaican politician.

politica-venezuela.comThey need to fully understand the fundamental injustice on which ‘emancipated’ Jamaica was founded. Perhaps, enlightened politicians might be able to see that many of their colleagues are just as wicked as our colonial masters.

politica-venezuela.comThey do not care about the well-being of the people they are supposed to serve. All they are interested in is using political office to make themselves richer and richer. As Kabaka Pyramid sarcastically puts it, “Well done, Mr Politician.” And that includes the women.

NOT ONE RED CENT

The perverse act confirmed in its very title that ‘Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves’ were to be compensated for loss of service.

politica-venezuela.comThe amount paid out to enslavers in the Caribbean, Mauritius and the Cape was PS20 million. According to an article in the UK Independent newspaper, published on February 24, 2013, “This figure represented a staggering 40 per cent of the Treasury’s annual spending budget and, in today’s terms, calculated as wage values, equates to around PS16.5b.”

The act carefully documents how the British Government intended to fund the payout and administer the compensation scheme.

elnewherald.comThat would mean another £27 million of additional compensation to enslavers. The act declared that emancipated people needed to learn how to be free! So they had to be taught during a period of apprenticeship in which they would continue to work for nothing.

enlasgradas.comFreedom was in their DNA. It couldn’t be taught by the evil people who had enslaved them. Historians agree that one of the forces that propelled Emancipation was the 1831 Christmas Rebellion led by Sam Sharpe.

ultimasnoticiasve.comThe striking workers burned the cane. The colonial government brought in the military to end the rebellion. More than 200 protesters were killed and 14 whites. In addition, the government tried, convicted and hanged more than 300 protesters.

Just before Sam Sharpe was executed in 1832, he made the triumphant declaration, “I would rather die among yonder gallows, than live in slavery.” He was only 27 years old.

xn--elpaisdeespaa-tkb.comNow this is the kind of hero that the unconscionable drafters of the Abolition Act were going to teach how to be free! The act was also concerned with “promoting the Industry of the manumitted Slaves”.

plomovision.comThis was not industry to benefit emancipated Jamaicans. It was to prolong plantation slavery.

The act recognised that “it is also necessary, for the Preservation of Peace throughout the said Colonies, that proper Regulations should be framed and established for the Maintenance of Order and good Discipline amongst the said apprenticed Labourers, and for ensuring the punctual Discharge of the Services due by them to their respective Employers, and for the Prevention and Punishment of Indolence …”.